"Do you know the purpose of the Sand King Palace?" Zhang Leiguang asked. Wu Yun arrived earlier than him and had been cooperating with the Sand King Palace for a longer time, so he should know more.

Wu Yun sheathed the treasured sword he had finished wiping and began to maintain the scabbard. As he wiped it, he said, "I don't know much. I know a little, though."

"The idea of the Sand King Palace is to erect an impenetrable wall between the Great Zhou and the Western Desert, cutting off the connection between them. Then they can re-unify the forces of the Western Desert and revive the glory of the Desert Empire."

"To this end, they've also found a descendant of the Desert Empire's royal family—Wanyan Shahe. I played a part in finding him. The reward for the mission to find him was quite high, but unfortunately, after finding the person, there were no more valuable missions."

"An impenetrable wall?" Zhang Leiguang couldn't figure it out. "The Shenwu Realm isn't the real world. People here are like immortals, easily able to traverse the skies and the earth. What use is a high wall? Martial Cultivators can fly and cross walls effortlessly."

"I don't know about that. The Sand King Palace has been preparing for such a long time. They shouldn't overlook something this obvious, should they?" Wu Yun said.

Sound of footsteps approached the room, and the two lowered their voices. Wu Yun put away his sword, and Zhang Leiguang stood up to open the door.

...

After leaving the Sand King Palace, Lu Yu immediately distanced himself from it. He roughly guessed that there was a monstrous High Priest inside the palace, the strength of whom was unknown.

He certainly wouldn't hang around under the eyes of an unknown powerful figure. He could go back and use an earth escape technique to stir up the Sand King Palace again, but it wasn't necessary.

After escaping a thousand miles from the Sand King Palace, Lu Yu stopped and surveyed his surroundings. He flew into the sky to look for nearby settlements.

He saw a post station, or rather, an outpost. It was a border outpost of the Great Zhou, but whether it still held people from the Great Zhou near the Western Desert border was uncertain.

The Western Desert border has been quiet for centuries, nearly a millennium. It's possible soldiers in the outpost have never changed shifts, living near the outpost from youth to death.

The Great Zhou might have forgotten these inconspicuous outposts on the Western Desert border.

In fact, these outposts were not prioritized. Most soldiers sent to garrison the Western Desert border outposts could be considered exiled fringe figures.

They might have formed families with the people of the Western Desert, their descendants having proliferated over several generations; the original soldiers in the outpost might already have died of old age.

To them, the outpost was just a shelter from the rain and wind—a home, having lost its original defensive meaning.

Lu Yu approached the outpost. From a distance, he saw the outpost fenced off, with three or four children playing tag inside. The fenced yard was also hung with drying clothes and meat waiting to be desiccated.

All the children were clearly from the Western Desert, evident from their skin color.

"Who are you?" A young girl, almost grown, noticed Lu Yu and shouted.

There was still a trace of Great Zhou heritage in the young girl. Her skin was fairer than that of the other children.

"Hurry back in." Hearing the girl's voice, a woman working inside the house hurried out to usher the children indoors.

A middle-aged man stepped out with a rusty spear, carrying a crossbow, and looked at Lu Yu warily from the other side of the fence.

The crossbow on the middle-aged man's back was a Spirit-Breaking Crossbow, but the arrows were ordinary crossbow arrows. With a lack of supply and replenishment, the Spirit-Breaking Crossbow bolts had long been used up. But even ordinary crossbow arrows shot from a Spirit-Breaking Crossbow could threaten a Qi Cultivation realm Martial Cultivator.

This was the family's greatest self-defense weapon at the outpost, a treasure passed down from their grandfather's generation.

Maybe their grandfather was a Martial Cultivator, but in this place deprived of cultivation resources, even if there were cultivation techniques, they could only develop some hand-to-hand skills, at most stronger than average, inferior to Martial Cultivators cultivated to the Qi Cultivation realm.

Lu Yu spoke gently, "Take it easy. I mean no harm. I just want to ask how to get to the nearest city."

Upon hearing this, the middle-aged man relaxed a bit internally but didn't ease his facial vigilance. Looking at Lu Yu, he pointed in a direction and said, "Walk about eight hundred miles that way, and you'll reach Yellow Sand City."

"Thank you," Lu Yu expressed his gratitude.

"No need to thank me," the middle-aged man remained vigilant.